Key Events Involving Yahoo And Its Performance

Key events involving Yahoo and its performance Associated Press Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Published 05:12 p.m., Monday, May 7, 2012 Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen is pushed out, while Yahoo's chief technology officer and its top advertising executive in the United States get expanded duties. At a shareholders meeting, Bartz seeks to assure investors that she will polish Yahoo's tarnished brand and end a three-year financial funk that has depressed the company's stock. Yahoo rolls out new tools to get people to the information they seek more quickly, especially when searching about entertainment, sports and major events. Yahoo makes a surprise disclosure that Alibaba Group, one of China's most powerful Internet companies, had spun off its online payment service, Alipay. Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock seeks to defuse speculation about Bartz's job security at Yahoo's annual shareholders meeting, only to have it ignited again at the end of the session by an exasperated investor. Chairman Roy Bostock and three other longtime board members say they won't seek re-election to give Thompson an enhanced team of independent directors. Many Yahoo shareholders had been clamoring for Bostock to step down since the company balked Microsoft's 2008 takeover offer. Yahoo announces three new board members, gearing up for a proxy fight with one of its largest shareholders, Third Point LLC, which is trying to win four seats on Yahoo's board. Hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, who controls a 5.8 percent stake in the company through his Third Point fund, blasts Yahoo's board appointments as "illogical." The cuts are part of an overhaul aimed at focusing on what Thompson believes are Yahoo's strengths while also trying to address its weaknesses in the increasingly important mobile computing market. Yahoo believes the new structure will improve users' experience with Yahoo, work closely with advertisers in different regions of the globe and strengthen the company's technology group.